The earth is a beautiful planet of life. The earliest primitive life was born in the ocean 3.8 billion years ago. After a long period of evolutionary evolution, primitive life finally ushered in a life explosion 500 million years ago. A large number of organisms continued to appear. At the same time, some marine organisms also moved to land and evolved into terrestrial life.
The time from the birth of terrestrial organisms to the present is only more than 500 million years. Although the birth of terrestrial organisms is not long in the history of life on earth, the evolutionary course of terrestrial organisms is extremely rich and wonderful. Different overlord creatures appeared on different timelines, especially the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, which is a glorious age of life. Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years.
If it were not for the mass extinction caused by the subsequent asteroid impact on the earth, perhaps the dinosaurs would not withdraw from the stage of history. After the extinction of the dinosaurs, it took a period of evolution before the birth of the number of people. Seeing this, many friends may have such a question: in the long life history of the earth, why did the number of people appear much later than the dinosaurs? ?
To unravel this mystery, let’s first understand who the original ancestors of humans and dinosaurs were? I believe many friends know that the original ancestors of the population are primates, and primates belong to mammals. So how does the time of the birth of mammals compare to the time of the birth of dinosaurs?
According to scientists’ archaeological research findings, the earliest dinosaur appeared 231 million years ago, while the earliest mammal appeared 225 million years ago. The difference between the two is about 6 million years. Many people may think that 6 million years is an extremely long period of time, but in fact, from the perspective of biological evolution, millions of years are only a very short period of time.
Therefore, from the perspective of biological evolution, there is no significant gap between the birth time of dinosaurs and mammals. As long as mammals evolve slightly faster than dinosaurs, they can completely walk in front of dinosaurs and become the overlord of the earth. But why did the dinosaurs dominate the earth for 160 million years?
In fact, speaking of this, as long as we understand the basic laws of nature, you will suddenly realize it. We all know that nature is very fair to life. No matter what kind of creature it is, it must follow the rule of “things competing against the sky, survival of the fittest”.
Dinosaurs can surpass mammals and dominate the earth for 160 million years, which means that dinosaurs can adapt to the natural environment for 160 million years. From this point of view, it is difficult for us to regard dinosaurs as a low-level creature. In fact, the definition of the number of high-level creatures is nothing more than our own subjective behavior. What is a high-level creature and what is a low-level creature? It is difficult for us to give a definitive answer before we truly crack the mystery of life.
Why couldn’t mammals gain the advantage over 200 million years ago and replace dinosaurs as the overlord of the earth? The reason for all this is mainly reflected in the body shape. According to the research of scientists, the ancestor of dinosaurs is Protoropodium. Its body length reaches one meter. It is an omnivorous animal that mainly feeds on small animals.
When the earliest mammals appeared, they were only as big as the current house mice, and they were relatively small, and they were mainly eaten by insects. This difference in size made the earliest mammals no competitive advantage at all, instead they were the prey of Protoraptors.
Although primitive mammals appeared only 600 years later than dinosaurs, there was a huge gap in body size and no competitive advantage at all. Therefore, in the era of the continuous rise of dinosaurs, primitive primitive mammals can only survive in the cracks and cannot achieve a good ecological niche.
Without a good niche advantage, mammals will not be able to complete the diversified evolution and evolve to a higher level of life. Dinosaurs have dominated the earth for 160 million years, and mammals have been stubborn for 160 million years, and there is no chance of turning over. Until 65 million years ago, the arrival of an asteroid completely changed the fate of mammals.
As long as the dinosaurs do not go extinct, then mammals will never have the chance to stand up. Fortunately, nature may not want dinosaurs to continue to grow. It brought a terrible disaster. An asteroid with a diameter of 10 kilometers hit the earth and ended the dinosaur era. .
So after the end of the dinosaur era, did mammals rise quickly? Of course not. In fact, mammals have not turned over for 6 million years after the extinction of dinosaurs. The reason is that after the extinction of dinosaurs, birds took over the main ecological niche at that time, and then reptiles. It wasn’t until 59 million years ago when these large competitors disappeared that mammals had a chance to rise.
By 56 million years ago, mammals had undergone diversified evolution, and the earliest primates appeared, thus opening the multi-directional evolution of primates. The number of people is a product of a path in the multi-directional evolution of primates. After reading this, I believe my friends will also understand why the number of people appears much later than the dinosaurs, all of which are the result of natural selection.
The evolutionary direction of organisms is uncertain. The appearance of the number of people is actually the result of many coincidences. In essence, the number of people is also a mammal. It is difficult to say whether mammals must be higher than dinosaurs. The number of people is only a few million years old, and dinosaurs have dominated the earth for 160 million years. In terms of adaptability to nature, perhaps the number of people is far less than that of dinosaurs.
Whether the number of people can exist for 160 million years is also a difficult thing to say. Moreover, the extinction of dinosaurs is not the result of their natural evolution, but because of an extraterrestrial disaster. Would the dinosaurs become extinct if there were no asteroids that hit the earth 65 million years ago? It may not be necessary.
If the dinosaurs did not become extinct before 65 million, then there would be no mammals, and it would still be the dinosaurs who would continue to dominate the earth. It is possible that in a longer period of time, on the road of diversified evolution of dinosaurs, there will also be a kind of dinosaurs on the road to intelligent evolution, thus giving birth to dinosaurs.
Some people may think this is impossible. If the size of dinosaurs is the size of a dinosaur, if they are on the path of intelligent evolution, wouldn’t the born dinosaurs become giants? In fact, there is no fixed ratio for the size of intelligent organisms. The average height of the number of people is about 1.7 meters, so it is not impossible for intelligent organisms to appear as tall as several meters or more than tens of meters.
Moreover, dinosaurs are a huge race with many classifications. Not all dinosaurs are giants, but there are also small dinosaurs. Therefore, as long as dinosaurs continue to evolve, the possibility of becoming intelligent life is also very high. If that were the case, there would be no number of people now, and the dinosaur civilization would rule the earth.
It can be seen that the path of biological evolution is full of various unknowns, and we cannot know what evolutionary path the organism will take next. In the natural environment, we also cannot know what kind of evolution the number of people will go to in the future? Perhaps with the help of technology, the evolution of the number of people will tend toward technology, using technology to transform themselves and achieve alternative evolution.
Whether this evolutionary path that relies on technology can completely overcome natural evolutionary evolution is still unknown. In the future, the number of people will not be able to determine how long they can survive on the earth. It is possible that in the near future, the number of people will follow the footsteps of the dinosaurs because of disasters. It is also possible that the number of people has become a real interstellar civilization, and since then embarked on the road of interstellar colonization, no longer limited to a small earth, a small solar system.